WACO, Texas (KXXV) — San Jose Jewelers discusses the skyrocketing price of gold and whether it's worth investing in it. Many are also melting their gold down for investment.
- About a 20% increase in precious metal, 24 karat gold.
- The price of gold surpassed $3,000 per ounce for the first time this past mid-March.
- The price is projected to hit nearly $3,500 in the upcoming months.
- For more information on San Jose Jewelers, click here.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
It’s been said jewelry is eternal.
After being in business for almost 40 years, San Jose Jewelers on LaSalle Avenue in Waco knows that rings true.
“It's just to me it's an honor when you can make an heirloom for somebody,” Robert Jimenez, owner of San Jose Jewelers, said.
Some of those heirlooms are made of gold, which has increased in value in the past few months.
With the price passing $3,000 for the first time in mid-March, now, it’s getting close to $3,500.
“As of January just this year, 2025, there's been about a 20% increase in precious metal, 24 karat gold. 10 years it's been almost three times the margin mark up from in the last 10 years so you can see that the transition is just gone, you know the metal cost has just gone through the roof,” Jimenez said.
“People are looking for safe havens for outside of the jewelry industry, the uncertainty right now going on in the world," Jimenez said. "People are a little more concerned about where their dollars are you going to put them in the US market, stocks and bonds and things like that, so you get people looking for a little bit safer place to put your dollars and that's what people are buying but when they buy they drive the price up that means me as a manufacturer have to pay those prices. So you've got to pay those prices and you've got jack the prices up."
“I've got to increase my prices because there again there's workmanship involved, there's overhead involved, so every jewelry store is paying for that gold being at that price, and it's passed on to the consumer,” he said.
Another option is to melt down your gold.
“It costs a little bit more because we're producing something strictly for you, but it comes with a sentimental value, so yes, we're still doing it, and we can do it. The cost is not as cheap as furnishing everything you know, but a lot of people are doing it,” Jimenez said.
And with the increased demand comes a rise in prices—
“We've come a long way, and coming from when I first started this business, you know, gold was sitting at $250- $300 an ounce. Now we're almost $3,300 an ounce, you bring the values of what you do up to this floor,” Jimenez said.
